Debates of Feb. 15th, 2022

Old Age Security Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The question was short and the answer has to be short too.

The hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am in Alberta right now, my colleague's home province, so it is a bit earlier for me. I am a little lucky for that.

I would also like to thank him for his words on Ukraine. It is something that all of us are seized with at the moment.

I agree with the member when he talks about the cruel delays the Liberals have put our most vulnerable seniors through. As we go forward, I think everyone in this House wants to move as fast as we possibly can for seniors. One of the times that I was most proud of being a member of Parliament during this particular sitting was when the Conservatives moved all stages of the conversion therapy ban. The Conservatives were the ones who made the motion so that we would ban conversion therapy. I was so proud of the Conservatives then.

We have this moment where they could do the same thing and move fast for seniors. Why do they not see that this is an opportunity to use the powers that we have as parliamentarians to get help to seniors as fast as we can?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, first, let me get back to finish the facts about the previous member's response—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Answer questions as they come. Thank you.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I look forward to being able to debate that at length at some point in time, which would be very, very important.

A simple response is that there was a lot of dialogue about the issue which the member mentioned that did take place in the last Parliament. There was a lot of work that got it to the point where the decision was made for that to be fast tracked in this Parliament, but we are literally debating a fix to a problem with a program that the government created.

Forgive my skepticism when it comes to my lack of trust with the fact that the Liberals would have gone through the due diligence to actually get it right. Challenges with CEBA have had to be addressed three times. Time and time again, there have been many examples where the government has made claims that a team Canada approach was needed, yet what happened? We ended up back here in this place having to fix its mistakes.

I think there is a healthy level of skepticism that many of us have when it comes to ensuring that we can do exactly what our jobs are. The fact that we are sitting until midnight—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Now it is time for another question.

The hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is such a riveting debate. I especially enjoyed the at-length comments from my friend from Battle River—Crowfoot on diversity and how we represent 338 unique corners of this world. I happen to think my riding is the number one riding in Canada. I have glaciers, ski hills and all sorts of great things.

One of the things that we all come here to do as members of Parliament is go to committees. I love committees, but with this bill we have been prevented from going to committee. What I am worried about with this legislation, and with the other bill that passed the other day, has to do with the importance of committees in debating legislation. Why should we not bring this bill before committee? Would Canadians not be better served if we spent one day to debate this bill at committee and go clause by clause before the other House returns next week?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comment from the eminent member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, although I would disagree with him, quite strongly, on the best riding in the country. Although I do not have glaciers, it may feel like that before a chinook comes in the cold winter months, which start pretty early in the fall and go pretty late in the spring.

The member makes a very valid point. There is due process in this place that has been finely tuned over more than a century here and multiple centuries, close to a millennia, of parliamentary process when it comes to the historical basis for the Westminster system that we are all privileged to be able to take our seat in.

The committee process is one of the very valid and important steps required to ensure that we get it right. Again, forgive me for my skepticism, but we are fixing a Liberal mistake. We should make sure that there are not further mistakes that would end up hurting folks like Larry who deserve government to get it right.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, does the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot have an answer to the question of the Conservative Party position on OAS at age 67.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member asked that quickly. This will take just a moment so I hope you will indulge me just slightly.

The conversations that took place back in 2013 and 2014 were about making sure that there was the long-term viability of a benefit that Canadians depended on. I find it ironic that the Liberals will try to talk about somehow there being significant cuts when it was truly about ensuring that there was a conversation—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Madam Speaker, I want to go back to the question that my NDP colleague asked previously because she made an excellent point. This member allowed to pass all stages of the conversion therapy ban bill, all in one quick unanimous consent motion where everybody agreed to all stages of it and it passed unanimously, so quickly, and this member clearly voted in favour of it.

Why does this member not care about seniors the same way that he clearly does the LGBTQ community?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I have a point of order, Madam Speaker.

I believe that if we were to look at the Standing Orders and conventions of this place, to try to impugn the record of a member is certainly not something that is permitted within the dialogue of this esteemed chamber.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Can I caution the hon. member to be perhaps less blunt in impugning intentions on the hon. member?

I do ask the member to answer, please.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate your clarification on the matter.

I find that it is, again, ironic that we are dealing with two very different issues here. We are fixing a problem with a Liberal bill. That is what this bill is about. We are fixing a Liberal problem.

When it comes to Bill C-4 and Bill C-6, there was extensive debate that had taken place over the course of my time in Parliament that certainly led to the decisions that were made regarding conversion therapy.

When it comes to this bill, I find it very troubling that members opposite would somehow suggest that it is a dislike or some aversion against a certain segment of society and that we would not simply want to be here to do our jobs. That is the sort of politics that is forcing Canadians to give up the faith that they should have in our public institutions. We have a—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

We will have one last question from the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to hear about Larry specifically. I have many constituents in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith with very similar stories to Larry's, so I am always happy to hear about what is happening in other ridings and to know, unfortunately, this story is not alone.

During the pandemic, we saw that, unfortunately, seniors are becoming poorer while the ultrarich are getting richer. Could the member please clarify whether it is now time for the ultrarich to pay their fair share and to finally provide seniors, like Larry, with what they need and deserve such as—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, like Larry, there are so many blue collar workers out there, including many shift workers, who would start work at this hour. It is an honour to participate in debate in this place at an hour when many across this country, whether it be health care workers or those in any other segment of the Canadian economy, may be just getting to work.

We see the devastating impacts of many things, like inflation, that are making middle- and lower-income Canadians poorer. These things have to be addressed to ensure that benefits are being indexed appropriately and people can simply qualify for what they are entitled to. I could go on and on about this extensively.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise this evening to speak to Bill C-12.

Over the course of this day of debate, it has been shown that this very simple and very clear bill seeks to fix an obvious mistake that is a source of profound injustice for seniors across Canada, especially the poorest seniors.

I think we know what we are dealing with tonight. I have twenty minutes of speaking time, and I do not plan to use it. This is the end of a long day. It is very clear where we all stand. This bill should pass.

This is very rare for me, by the way. Earlier today I voted for closure. I think in the whole time I have been a member of Parliament, which is astonishingly, and this is a huge honour, coming onto 11 years, I think I have only voted for closure one other time. It offends me to close debate almost every time.

However, seniors have been waiting too long for a simple error to be repaired, and I want to see the bill pass as quickly as possible. I wanted to look at this from a broader perspective and raise something about this. This comes from the comments immediately before mine, from the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot, but from those of others as well.

We are here to fix a mistake, something that should never have happened. The seniors who applied for COVID relief were, in many cases, assured it would not affect their guaranteed income supplement. There was bad advice given to many people, as has happened before on other aspects of COVID relief. However, seniors were shocked to find that their guaranteed income supplement had been clawed back.

To fix the mistake, we have to bring another bill to Parliament. Think of how many times this has happened. The member for Battle River—Crowfoot mentioned the three times to fix the CEBA. Think about what happened when we found that there were other unintended mistakes that occurred under COVID relief.

One that is still hanging over us was the change to the Canada Recovery Benefit, which happened in the summer. This was when it looked as though we were coming out of the pandemic, and there was tremendous pressure that we were not getting people back to work because their COVID benefits made it easier for them to stay home. I think we have all heard that narrative. I do not buy into it, by the way.

We have all heard that narrative, that it was hard to get people to come back to work. Because of that, the CRB was reduced from $500 to $300. However, now it is clear that we were not on our way out of the COVID experience. We still have businesses closing. We still have public health orders. They have gone on.

They may be about to be lifted, but the decision that was made in July does not look so good in February. That is so much time for people to have been struggling to hang on at $300. Again, to fix this simple mistake, an entire new piece of legislation is required, and we have to come back to Parliament.

Think about another thing that was promised by the Liberal government in 2020. That, of course, is the Canada disability benefit. It is much needed. We know that, as a community, if we look at people with disabilities, that is the differently abled community, it struggles the most with poverty. The Canada disability benefit is long overdue. It was promised in 2020. It was promised again in the Liberal platform in 2021. I am sure they intend to get to it. I honestly do. I am not suggesting anything to do with skepticism on my part. I think the minister genuinely wants to bring forward the legislation.

However, here we are. People are poor, and they are still struggling with a society that is struggling with the pandemic, and they are still living with being differently abled in a society that does not accommodate them. We pass legislation for a barrier-free society, but we are not there yet.

Again, it needs legislation. I think we can make the case that, after two years in the pandemic, what we have discovered through COVID are the depths of inequality, which many of us had not looked at. I think a lot of us who are arguing all the time to address poverty have looked at it.

We have been very, I hate to use the word smug, but Canadians who are living above the poverty line have a hard time imagining how hard it is for our fellow citizens, who are homeless, dealing with addiction, and unable to find a place to live, even with two people in the same family working.

One thing that struck me regarding COVID-related stories has to do with the spread of COVID. This is a story from two years ago in Ottawa at one of the homeless shelters. The workers and supervisors wondered how COVID had come into this particular homeless shelter, only to discover that two of its regular residents were workers at long-term care homes. This was their address; this was where they lived. They went to work at long-term care homes and brought COVID back to the homeless shelter. Working people doing hard jobs, the frontline workers we needed so desperately, were infected with COVID and brought it to a homeless shelter.

We need to recognize from all these various stories that we do not have a social safety net that works. Our predecessors in this place from another minority Liberal Parliament in the late 1960s, when Lester B. Pearson was the Prime Minister, and the extraordinary people who once were the NDP, managed to use their minority position to push for what was needed. I apologize to my friends in the NDP now, as it is a shadow of its former self without the giants of social justice Tommy Douglas and David Lewis.

We had our whole health care system put in place in the late 1960s. We had the Canada pension plan put in place in the late 1960s. We had unemployment insurance and student loans without interest payments all in that period. I describe it in ways that might make one think the music of Camelot is about to swell in the background, but we had that once.

Here we are in a minority Parliament again. Let us be creative. I ask this of my friends across party lines. This is a moment to point out the inefficiencies of the failure to eradicate poverty when we have the chance. This is the time to accept.

I am very proud of the fact that the Green Party of Canada was the first party in this country to advocate for a guaranteed livable income, but there are many more of us now. Obviously the New Democrats have been advocating for it strongly, and many backbenchers in the Liberal Party are advocating for a guaranteed livable income. Prominent Conservatives are too, like former senator Hugh Segal, whose brilliant book, called Bootstraps Need Boots, was just wonderful. We cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps if we are shoeless.

This is an important moment for us to think about the ways we take on these problems. They are massively inefficient. Each mistake made is not calculated to make the poor poorer, but they have that effect. Each mistake, each piece of legislation and each failure to get the right decimal number cannot be fixed by a simple regulation or a wave of the wand from the minister. Bill after bill has to come back to this place. Let us fix it once and for all. Let us say, as we debate Bill C-12, that we are going to pass this one quickly but are not going to give up on casting a light on what is unacceptable in this country. Poverty is unacceptable in this country, poverty in indigenous communities and poverty in any community.

We are a wealthy country and we have study after study after study on this. The all-party poverty caucus has been holding hearings on it for as long as I have been in this place. These are studies that prove our society will be better. It is not about charity. The health, the resilience and the economic strength of our country will be fortified when we have eliminated poverty, and every Canadian has a roof over their head, has access to pharmacare and is able to live in dignity. Then this place will not be bogged down in a pandemic with realizing over and over again that we have a gap here and a gap over there and more legislation is needed.

Let us be brave. Let us be bold. Let us think like earlier generations of parliamentarians did, and let us think fully about the full range of programs that seniors need, such as affordable housing for every Canadian and long-term care that is not for profit. Let us think about what we can do for housing to ensure that seniors do not need to leave their own home, and let us perhaps have creative solutions to ensure they can stay at home. We know that the costs for seniors living in their own home are far less than if they end up in hospital.

I could go on, but the hour is late and I promised myself that I would not use all my available time, because all of us are of one mind in this place: This bill should pass. Our only difference of opinion is about how fast. I am on the side of as fast as possible. That is the only difference in this place tonight.

While we are thinking about what we need to do for each other and for our parents, I am now a senior. I am in the boat of the 67-year-olds, but boy am I lucky to have such a good, rewarding job. I think we are paid too much as MPs. When we look at the people who do social work and frontline health care work, they do not earn enough, and we may earn too much, but that is a conversation for another day.

I am honoured to have this job. I want to be of service. I ask all of my colleagues who agree to let us get rid of poverty altogether, not with piecemeal, band-aid programs. Let us do the decent thing. Let us show the world that we are committed to social justice, equality, anti-racism, fairness and, above all, democracy.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for her commitment, her sincerity and her passion. She presented us with a wish list for a world without scarcity, which I would say, quite honestly, is not the world we live in. That is a function of the reality of the human condition, not of anything else. She and I both hope for a world in which scarcity does not exist.

In the world we live in, we have to face tradeoffs. It seems to me that policy-making is about those tradeoffs. Realistically, one cannot simply say that we want to spend more here and spend more there without asking where it all comes from. We are in a situation where, in the midst of this pandemic alone, the government has run up a deficit that has created a national debt of over $1 trillion in this country. I think about my kids and the cost they will have to pay. That has to come from somewhere.

I would like to work with the member and other members on the issues she talked about: combatting poverty and making it easier for people to have the opportunities they need. To me, that comes from growth of jobs and opportunity—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I would remind the member that this is questions and comments. We have to leave time for other members.

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am going to let a big secret out of the bag and just say that I am deeply fond of the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. We share a lot.

I will say that bean counters would love a guaranteed livable income. Can members guess where we would save money? Snooping around on single moms, to cut their benefits if they find out they have moved in with their boyfriends, takes money. We have a shame-based system of band-aid solutions to poverty. They are expensive. They cost a lot of money. It does not cost money at the federal level the way it costs money at the provincial or municipal levels, but if it is all counted up, and people have done a lot of research on this, a guaranteed livable income could replace a lot of very inefficient programs that are expensive.

Those people who lose their jobs snooping around and checking up on single moms would be all right. They would not fall below the poverty line, because there would be a guaranteed livable income for all.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech and for the words she spoke in excellent French. Her speech once again attests to her big heart, her generosity and her ability to analyze an issue.

At the beginning of her speech, my colleague spoke about fixing a mistake and discrimination against seniors. We agree that what happened with the GIS was pure discrimination.

I would like her to comment on another type of discrimination resulting from the creation of two classes of seniors and on how we could fix that mistake.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my Bloc Québécois colleague from Beauport—Limoilou for her very kind and generous comments.

I do think the government needs to fix the mistake it made when it created two classes of seniors. I think the best way to address inequality is to create a system that will eliminate poverty. That is the point of the guaranteed income supplement.

There are other things we must do to protect seniors' health, such as fix problems with long-term health care, which should not be in the hands of for-profit enterprise.